


blueprints

by Batman



Series: tonight, this war is easily lost [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, Spoilers, vague spoilers for TRK that is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 13:53:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6756838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batman/pseuds/Batman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <span class="small">When someone touches you and it’s the first time that you’re being touched, do they stumble upon places on you that make you sing or do they form them like points on a map? He wants to say, does Adam discover those places on the insides of his arms, or do those places exist because they were kissed into being first by Adam?</span>
</p><p>Over the course of a handful of fortnights, Ronan comes back to himself, and Adam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blueprints

**Author's Note:**

> WELL, I have been introduced to _The Raven Cycle_ and consequently this perfect relationship. Trying to explain why I get Ronan, and Adam, and Ronan _and_ Adam would be like trying to explain why I speak Hindi. I present a tiny fix-it for the time between the last chapter and the epilogue of _The Raven King_. Spoilers are vague but very much present.
> 
> WHAT A BUNCH OF CHARACTERS.

Yesterday the beauty of early dawn  
came over me, and I wondered who  
my heart would reach toward. Then  
this morning again and you.

— _The generations I praise_ , Rumi

 

One of the things he used to wonder about the most was if he would always have woken up tied away from motion, whether he was the Greywaren or not.

The first morning of the first week, when the sun pours onto the floorboards of the bedroom, Ronan wakes up unable to move. Not because of a dream in his arms or on his arms, but because Adam’s arms are locked around him, tight in a way that says _I won’t forget, even in sleep_.

Ronan lies there holding himself still, so deliberately in control that he feels like he grew up overnight. He’s always been growing up overnight.

 

∆

 

It’s been maybe ten days, but Ronan has already declared Blue and Gansey unbearable. Adam has nothing to say about the matter at all, which is a bigger indication of his agreement than any words would have been.

Henry watches on and cackles. He has the habit of ordering the most peculiar combination of toppings that Ronan has ever seen a human being have the desire to consume atop a pizza, but Nino’s has its reputation because nothing really phases the staff, including the staff being a half-tree spirit, or whatever the hell it is that Blue has finally found an identity in. This would also be due to the rest of the staff at Nino’s not being aware of Blue’s magical status, or any of theirs, for that matter.

It’s surreal. He doesn’t know how he’s going to get used to it, having Adam safe and sturdy beside him when the memory of him in the blindfold still makes Ronan flinch at random times. Doesn’t know how to look at Gansey without wanting to latch onto him, doesn’t know how to look at Henry and not think _let’s go to Nino’s, Noah, we won’t make you eat_.

But with every day that passes, he gets a little closer to understanding. He is embarrassingly grateful for _their_ understanding, this little family that they’ve somehow managed to keep intact despite its missing pieces. Embarrassingly grateful for Declan and Matthew, far but safe, embarrassingly grateful for everything. Everything, a hundred waiting Cabeswaters and rainfalls, and the hand of Adam Parrish in his own under the table.

 

∆

 

When someone touches you and it’s the first time that you’re being touched, do they stumble upon places on you that make you sing or do they form them like points on a map? He wants to say, does Adam discover those places on the insides of his arms, or do those places exist because they were kissed into being first by Adam?

Ronan’s never been fond of circular questions, especially ones he knows he’ll never know the answers to. He doesn’t remember or learn more than he needs to. Here, what he learns is what he remembers, and what he learns is this: when Adam gasps, there are lavender shadows under each line of his ribs that look like they were stroked into place by a dreamer just like him. Also, when Adam gasps, Ronan has to fight the most ardent impulse to laugh in disbelief, but that war is on the inside and on the outside Adam is a victory singing in every lavender breath.

 

∆

 

The first morning of the fourteenth week, when the sun pours onto the floorboards of the bedroom, Ronan wakes up unable to see. Not because of a dream in his eyes or on his eyes, but because he’s somehow managed to hide his face between the pillow and Adam’s shoulder blades in such a way that opening his eyes is useless. Adam’s nightshirt is as thin and soft as always, and Ronan is as stupefied as always. He thinks it’s going to take a little while longer. He can almost smell Cabeswater on Adam’s skin, but it’s going to take a little while longer.

Adam shifts in his sleep, gently knocking Ronan’s forehead with one of his sharp shoulders. Ronan snakes an arm around his waist and wonders what the hell it was doing so far away in the first place.

 

∆

 

Ronan, as one of many recreational activities (including destroying Henry and his activists on the streets at night because he’ll never outgrow something that isn’t supposed to be outgrown— and apparently the hotel cost of some fictitious Venezuela excursion is at stake in a three-on-five series of matches), and a way to slowly come back to himself without being afraid, likes to see how small he can dream. Somehow, the trouble is not with manifesting the finest of patterns; it’s actually imagining them. More than once he’s first conjured up a pen in his hand that can go as thin as he wants it to.

When he manages to make an impossible blue flower that constantly curls up and blossoms on the tip of his finger, he takes it back to Adam. It’s not one of those _can-I-take-you-on-a-date_ things.

‘Is this one of those _can-I-take-you-on-a-date_ things?’ Adam asks.

‘That’s the world’s smallest corsage,’ Gansey says, and because he hasn’t looked up from his book, Ronan can’t even tell if he’s serious or not. ‘Prom’s not even for a month—’

‘Jesus shit,’ Ronan says. ‘Look, either you take it or I eat it.’ For starters, just because Gansey is Gansey and belongs everywhere, it doesn’t mean that Ronan is not just a little miffed that he happened to be in the kitchen for all of this. ‘Stick it on a toothpick or something, I don’t know.’

‘I’m actually making an effort for this kitchen to not convince visitors that we have pack rat issues,’ Adam says, but the smile in his voice is too loud to hide.  

Just then, Blue walks in with Opal, and begins to greet them before catching sight of the little flower on Ronan’s held-out hand. ‘What’s that, a corsage for Barbies?’

‘Oh, fuck off, all of you.’

 

∆

 

The first morning of the twenty eighth week, when the sun pours onto the floorboards of the bedroom, Ronan wakes up unable to speak. Not because of a dream in his mouth or on his mouth, but because Adam has chosen to kiss him awake, or at least something like it.

His lips are nearly motionless, fixed around Ronan’s lower one as if to keep him there, just keep him there. And Ronan has always been a creature of motion, fast cars or fast thoughts in slow cars or a mind somersaulting and running and flying even in the thick of the night, especially in the thick of the night. But it’s the sun that’s pouring onto the floorboards of the bedroom, and Ronan only moves to bring his hands up. Holds Adam’s face between them, the cheekbones he doesn’t know what to do with, the curl of his hair over his temples.

Adam slides a leg between Ronan’s, hooks it around a knee, brushes his hips against Ronan’s. His own hands are on Ronan’s neck and because Ronan has almost completely forgotten the last time that happened, he celebrates by lowering his own, down Adam’s sides, then up again under his shirt, splayed across his narrow, warm back.

He closes his eyes again.

 

∆

 

‘We don’t even have Latin anymore,’ Adam huffs, and the absurdity of Adam complaining about someone working is only eased by the truth in his statement. They _don’t_ even have Latin anymore; it’s French that Ronan should be studying. ‘It’s three in the morning, Lynch.’

‘If Gansey was studying Latin at three in the morning, you wouldn’t say anything,’ Ronan huffs back as Adam straddles his thighs. The edge of the desk makes the back of his cardigan go up a little, and Ronan rests his cold fingertips on the exposed skin just to hear Adam curse.

‘Gansey?’ Adam loops his arms around Ronan’s neck. ‘Gansey’s a fucking nerd.’

The statement is either so audacious or ridiculous or both that they simultaneously crack up, leaning forward until they’re laughing into a few shared cubic inches of air. Ronan’s forehead against Adam’s hairline, the tip of his nose brushing the bridge of Adam’s. For all that Ronan could close his books and fall into slumber, there is an Adam inside him that refuses to sleep.

That Adam— this Adam, of a hundred waiting Cabeswaters and rainfalls— straightens up and smiles down at him. ‘I’ll teach you some Latin.’

‘Oh, God, please no.’

‘ _Veni_ ,’ Adam says, and his finger is on Ronan’s temple. He trails it down to the point on his shoulder to which his tattoo extends. _‘Vidi_.’ Shameless and sleepless, he lowers that finger, the tip of it over Ronan’s chest. _‘Vici_.’ Victory singing in every lavender breath.

Ronan swallows. ‘Jesus Christ.’

 

∆

 

When someone touches you and it’s the first time that you’re being touched, are they naming the points on the map or are they filling the map in?

His hands skittering over the lavender strokes under Adam’s ribs are restless with the memory of Adam’s lips under them, smiling and saying _veni, vidi, vici_ so easily like that, so easily. Ronan is a creature of motion, but he moves in hurricane circles on roads where he knows how much above the speed limit he can go, against skies where he knows how much the fight the wind is going to put up against Chainsaw’s nightlike wings. Adam is a creature of motion that moves ahead, painstakingly but thoroughly, making sure that if it’s only an inch he’s moved, it’s an inch that he’ll never see again.

 _Veni, vidi, vici_. Adam is his physical map, if he is Adam’s political one; Ronan is a conquest but Adam— he is—

 

∆

 

The first morning of the forty second week, when the sun pours onto the floorboards of the bedroom, Ronan wakes up unable to hear. Not because of a dream in his ears or on his ears, but because his headphones are on, and connected to the one song that he’s been bothering all his friends with _forever_.

He’s on his back, and one of his hands is in Adam’s. Adam is also on his back, holding up the small blue flower between his index and thumb, holding it up to the light and blinking at it. When Ronan shifts, Adam places it on the nightstand and pulls his headphones away.

‘I don’t think it was exactly a _nightmare_ ,’ he says. ‘But you weren’t very happy with things.’ It’s the most polite way Ronan’s ever heard of saying _your pillow is wet, man_ , and he’s embarrassingly grateful.

‘Think Noah’s all right?’ he says as thanks.

‘Yeah,’ Adam says. ‘Oh boy, he’s having the time of his life.’

‘Death.’

‘Well, now he’s taking a breather from all that fun to glare at you.’

It’ll be funny again soon, he knows, and he knows that Noah knows. It hasn’t even been that long since _anything_ , since his beautiful father and beautiful mother and the echo of Noah’s echo. His pillow is still goddamn wet. But Adam didn’t bother to pause the music and Ronan’s favourite song is still floating through the air, muted and doubly hilarious. Adam is sitting cross-legged against the wall, raising an eyebrow.

 

∆

 

He is—

 

∆

 

Sometimes Ronan thinks that Opal might like Adam better than she likes him. Considering he dreamt her, he isn’t surprised in the least.

Under her childish carelessness, Adam’s watch is falling apart, and nothing seems to make him happier. On this front Ronan’s given up on trying to understand; it’s between them and a happy Adam is a happy Opal, and saying that it makes _him_ happy is useless.

It’s been happening more and more that the sight of the young-old trees makes him restless and gleeful for no reason yet. Even without what they have, Adam would’ve been able to read it the moment it settled in. With what they have, he chooses to leave it alone, and Ronan knows that he must stop waiting for questions to be asked if he already knows the answers to them. The trees are a bright, clueless kind of green, unknowing of the present and guiltless of the past or future. Maybe not these trees or rainfalls, maybe not for a while, but Ronan knows that leaf by leaf and flower by flower, he can remake a place that looks like his mother could appear from anywhere between the trees.

Adam doesn’t ask about the trees or rainfalls. What he does ask is if Ronan can dream up the smallest of pots to put his little blue corsage in. Which is the same thing.

 

∆

 

Cabeswater is no longer everything. It never was. It never contained everything, just took a thread from each of their favourite moments of life and wove together one hell of a story. _Everything_ is a bit of a different concept, less of a representation and more of a person nowadays. Oh, it’s not that Ronan doesn’t still smile at the traces of Kavinsky in every Mitsubishi he sees. It’s not that he wouldn’t give his heart for Gansey or his pride for Blue, or his life for that rickety old house with its rickety old psychics.

It’s more that when he’s standing in the amenities aisle and picking out enough toothbrushes to last Adam through all four years of college, he feels his knees give a little out of nowhere, because he is struck by Adam Parrish in his entirety. Of all the things he does and all the things he is, and more than anything— all the things that he can hold. More than thread through a needle, more than twenty kilos of groceries, more than the remaining rainwater of magic— he can hold all of Ronan, all of him. When Ronan feels happy, and when he feels empty, and when he is everything in between, Adam holds it all in his hands and eyes.

It’s not that Adam holds the entire world, a hundred waiting Cabeswaters and rainfalls. It’s more that when he can hold everything that Ronan is, there is nothing more that Ronan knows how to imagine for him.

That is everything. He _is_ the entire world; Ronan’s physical map. That is everything.

 

∆

 

He is _everything_.

 

∆

 

The first morning of the fifty sixth week, when the sun pours onto the floorboards of the bedroom, Ronan wakes up unable to breathe. Not because of a dream in his head or in his chest, but because of the blazing, breathless sensation of _everything_ growing so powerful inside all of him, so powerful that it is almost beyond his body, almost like Cabeswater. Almost like tears. He only knows one person who can hold all of that, all of him. He only knows one person who he can love like this.

‘Parrish,’ he says thickly, to the nape of Adam’s neck warm and damp under his lips. ‘Wake up, God.’

‘I’ve been awake for hours,’ Adam answers.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/soldierpoetking) and [Tumblr](http://sturlsons.tumblr.com). 
> 
> My tag for Gansey, which has all of two posts at the moment, is "President Cellphone". (My tag for Ronan is "GET REKT RONAN". Fittingly, my tag for Pynch is "OTP: I hope you didn't bring flowers" because that's just the kind of person I choose to be.)
> 
> Bon courage to those who still have finals!


End file.
